പേജുകള്‍‌

Wednesday, November 23, 2011

One of the lesser-known dark chapters of British
history was the exodus of a small number of poor, struggling Welsh
workers who left their shores to set up a new life in a golden, green
land called Patagonia in 1865. Amazingly they survived and carried on
their culture, which remains in the form of the huge number of Welsh
place names there.

This forms the backbone of Marc Evans’ story, which tells parallel
stories set in the present day. A Welsh couple, Gwen and Rhys (Roberts
and Gravelle), are suffering because they cannot conceive. When Rhys is
offered a job photographing remote chapels in Patagonia he jumps at the
chance, seeing it as the perfect chance to repair their fragile
relationship. However, when they arrive they are met by handsome Mateo
(Rhys), to whom Gwen is clearly attracted – forcing Rhys more into his
shell. As Mateo takes the couple further and further into the desert
their relationship becomes more strained.

Meanwhile, at the same time, an elderly Patagonian lady, Cerys (Lubos),
tells her family she is going into hospital for an eye operation, and
needs a young guide. Her very young neighbour, Alejandro, joins her and
quickly discovers she has other ideas – Cerys wants to visit the Welsh
farm she was born in and barely remembers. He chaperones her all the way
to Cardiff, only to discover there are three farms with the same name
in Wales, all miles apart from each other. So they, too, have to travel
deep into the countryside, taking on broken down cars, bizarre train
timetables and incessant rain to find Cerys’ birthplace. Not that the
shy Alejandro minds though, especially when he meets the waitress of a
camping site in North Wales, Sissy (Duffy).

If this sounds like a gentle, meandering, slow, slightly dreamy fable,
well, it is…Evans is in no hurry to tell his story, quite happy instead
to indulge in the glorious countryside in both places. Patagonia is a
harsh, Spartan land with stunning deserts and mountains, and Wales looks
like it’s sponsored by the Welsh tourist board. Nothing wrong with
that, the problem sets in during the last half hour when all of the
goodwill Evans has built up wears pretty thin. It’s obvious where the
story is going, but he insists on dragging it out to an almost tiresome
degree, and suddenly throws in various minor characters, none of whom
add much to the tale.

The performances are fine, with one big exception - Roberts and Gravelle
make a believable couple, Rhys is a convincing stud – he’s even good on
a horse – and the young boy and old lady are a charming, funny couple.
The one jarring note is pop star Duffy’s cameo as a singing waitress, a
performance which should be added to the long, long list of rock stars
who come a cropper in the movies. She’s really out of her depth.Reviewer: Mike Martin

Bosnian's official submission to the Best Foreign Language Film category of the 84th Academy Awards 2012.

The
film deals with the tragedy of the women survivors of the Srebrenica
genocide, or rather, the consequences of the horrors they experienced -
it is about women whose sole purpose in life is to locate the bones of
their loved ones and give them a decent burial. Fifteen years later,
they still want just one simple thing - the truth. As a contrast, the
film deals with trivialities of modern living, obsessed with different
reality shows...